


Devotion

by Chocoholic221B, ninjaNinj



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, KuraOito, Mutual Pining, OitoKura, Someone please get the happy couple off the death ship, They love each other, Who knows this ship name tbh, but Kurapika is ruining it with those Eyeballs of his
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-06
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-03-14 20:13:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13597512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chocoholic221B/pseuds/Chocoholic221B, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninjaNinj/pseuds/ninjaNinj
Summary: Initially, Kurapika Kurta had one goal: Get the Scarlet Eyes. Eighth Queen Oito was meant to simply act as a means to an end. So, how does he, with his hardened heart, end up putting her first?  How is it that, after all these years, nothing has changed at all?  It seems his mission always ends up second, as people that shouldn’t matter somehow become top priority.





	Devotion

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant to be a one-shot under 1k words, but clearly that didn’t end up happening. This fic is somewhat of a theory, focusing on what Kurapika’s feelings and motivations are as he begins work as Queen Oito and Woble’s bodyguard. He joined the Zodiacs only to get to Tserriednich and the eyes, but for some reason he began to focus solely on protecting Oito and Woble. This fic explores an explanation as to why.

Kurapika should be upset.  He had come here under the pretense that he’d be working for Halkenburg, after thoughtful consideration of the pros and cons of bodyguarding for each Prince.  He’d agreed to this mission for the sole purpose of reclaiming the Scarlet eyes, which currently waited in the clutches of Fourth-Prince Tserriednich. 

 

Yet, now, here he is, standing before a woman who is definitely not Halkenburg, nor is she Halkenburg’s mother.  Instead, she is Oito Hui Guo Rou, eighth queen of the Kakin empire, eighth wife of King Nasubi.  She holds a baby in her arms.  

 

She reads him instantly.  “You look disappointed.”

 

Stunned by her observation, he waves his hands quickly, dismissing the idea… In fact, he is disappointed, but he thought his poker face was better than this.  “... No!  No, not at all, your highness.” 

 

Under any normal circumstance, Kurapika does not appreciate people who deceive him.  Why is it that this time, he finds himself impressed rather than annoyed? When this woman has dared to put a damper on his plans. Well, it isn’t every day that he’s outsmarted. 

 

Still, he’s spent far too much time on this to have it smashed to bits. The Zodiacs had dragged Kurapika into their ranks, despite his initial refusal. They continued to pull him along on their insane quest. A boat ride to the Dark Continent, where there is uncharted territory full of dark history and monsters; the man who owns the largest share of Kurta eyes conveniently joining them on the trip. It was enough to get him to agree to this suicide mission. If everything went as he’d envisioned, it might not have been that daunting of a task. But now. Damn, he should have guessed it wouldn’t go so smoothly. Nothing ever did.

 

As Queen Oito catches onto his disappointment, he realize that this woman is observant. Too observant. He’d have to be careful around her. She tries to convince him that  _ she  _ was the person he should be looking for. As if she could ever begin to understand what he needs. 

 

She explains the situation of the Princes, the horrors of the Dark Continent seem suddenly far more glamorous than the contrived political bloodbath he’s now going to have to deal with.  Kurapika sighs.  He most definitely did not sign up for this. A succession war. How he hates getting mixed up in things like these. 

  
  


With a frantic desperation Oito brushes a strand of curly dark hair out of her face, and Kurapika feels a twinge of sympathy. He quenches it down immediately. Emotions make things messy. He’ll do his job and somehow navigate through the intricacies of the bloodbath, get the Eyes, and get out. Everything and everyone else be damned. This is just a means to an end. “My daughter is all I care about now, and we’re in danger.”  Her dark eyes plead with worry, fear, and sadness. Kurapika listens, but he does nothing more. “If you are willing to help us escape from the boat I’ll see to it that you receive a tenfold increase in compensation.”  

 

There is something in her eyes when she looks at him.  A light, or perhaps a glimmer of hope amongst the worry and remorse. Kurapika might be the one person she can trust. Why does it feel like he’s betraying that hope. Oh yes, because he is. Because he is not here for her. He isn’t here to protect her. Not really. This revelation strikes him deep in his chest; the desire to trust and rely on another person is something Kurapika lost long ago. Sometimes, he forgot that others were still capable of it. To trust and to put that trust in him of all people.  He wonders what it is she sees in him. She is unaware of the things he’s done in his past--the measures he resorted to to obtain the eyes--and Kurapika will keep it this way, though he gets the feeling she wouldn’t change her mind about him even if he told her. 

 

“What say you?” she asks, dark eyes steady and captivating. How could he refuse? 

 

He closes his eyes. Not so quickly. That recklessness, he needs to tame it. He is no longer the child he was when he’d come to the Nostrades. 

 

Is there any other way? He’d planned to be a bodyguard for one of the Princes and now he is. If nothing else, she’s intelligent and quick on her feet. She might even prove to be a worthy ally. It may place him a little further away from the Fourth Prince, but perhaps she is right. Perhaps, she is the person he’s seeking.

 

He tells her what she wants to hear.  He’ll keep them out of danger, avoid anything that jeopardizes their safety.  It is a new skill of his: these sweet, empty words.  Much like the encounter with Biscuit, he thinks now that all women can be swayed by these niceties.  He could have his cake and eat it too: furthering his goals while staying on his employer’s good side.  

 

After a moment of silence, Oito seems to break.  Suddenly, he is hearing all about her past.  She comes from poverty, days spent fantasizing about living a wealthy, materialistic, gluttonous life as a Queen. She says that it wasn’t until Woble’s birth that she was forced to come to her senses, regretting every action that led her to this helpless position of danger.  She asks, with tears in her eyes, if Kurapika would like to hold Woble.  

 

But when Woble is placed into his arms he can’t help but soften.  It hits him that this innocent baby has no place in this bloodbath, and he’s filled with emotion he can no longer suppress. He’s held a child only once before. His cousin back in the Kurtan village. He nearly dropped him, then, but it’s a memory he held close to his heart. It is the same now, he realizes. After all the murder, and the massacre, after losing everything he had, this feeling is still the same. Suddenly, his old self doesn’t seem so distant. Less a dream, more a memory he’d finally pieced together again.    

 

Oito seems to relax a bit, smiling at him through her glistening eyes.  “Thank you, Kurapika,” she says, and all he can do is nod, the lump in his throat too large to speak.  

 

But soon, the memory shatters and is put back under the dream category. Kurapika’s past self and all the feelings he likes to keep with him are placed back in their cage under lock and key. 

 

For a second, Oito’s smile wavers, as if sensing the change. Kurapika tries his best to imitate those feelings once more. There’s a fine line between acting and reality, and Kurapika has learned to walk that line. Perhaps, it isn’t particularly healthy, but his health had never been his priority. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Although he had been briefed on the dimensions and the number of the decks, seeing the Black Whale ship in person is another story entirely.  With the top deck floating above water, he sees it is indeed shaped and painted like an actual black whale, and utterly enormous.  He will be staying in the top deck, of course, reserved for the royalty of Kakin and their staff.  

 

The first event, taking place immediately, is a dinner party.  Escorting Oito on board, Kurapika braces himself for immediate ambush.  He must consider the possibility of all hell breaking loose when when they enter the room--the succession war could start at any point. However, he finds that everyone at the party has on their best faces, feigning innocence and acting as if nothing out of the ordinary is happening.  He and Oito act the same, blending in seamlessly.  Most of the night is spent with Oito making small talk with the other guests, the focus almost always jumping back to the little Prince she cradled in her arms. He’s caught between either finding this suspicious or inevitable. 

 

When he finds out that the neutrally aligned Royal Guards will be constantly monitoring the hallways and movements of the Princes, he realizes this type of war will be nothing like his expectations.  Assassination will be taking place behind closed doors, likely with the help of nen.  Beyond this, they are at a further disadvantage: the low hierarchical status of Woble leaving them with fewer access points and privileges than the other Princes.  

 

He knows, from his experience as a hunter, that things can flip one-eighty into mass destruction at any moment.  One can never be too prepared.  He starts to relay this information to Oito, of what actions to take should a situation arise that calls for her escape. It’ll be best if she’s to remain informed. Again, an alliance can not be formed if one party is kept in the dark. 

 

“Your highness?” 

 

Her face is stricken, suddenly, with a fear so vivid it almost infects him as well. He reaches out to her subconsciously, before his brain catches up to his actions and quickly brings them to a halt. His arms are left hanging in mid air for a few seconds as he continues to speak. 

“Are you alright?” 

 

Her hands start to shake and she clasps them together in an attempt to stop the movement, but she continues to shiver, her wedding ring glinting maliciously in the bright light of the room.  Kurapika can’t help but spend a second staring at the large diamond adorning her finger.  It’s a gaudy, grotesque display of wealth, the royal family having far more of it than he’s ever seen. That is the reason she’s in this situation, her pursuit of wealth leading to the marriage to King Nasubi.  It has kept her here, in the middle of a bloodbath that neither she or her daughter are supposed to be in. And perhaps he was overstepping his boundaries, but in that moment, he thought making an enemy of the King wouldn’t be too awful, if it were to free her and Woble.

 

A ridiculous notion. One that he quickly tossed aside. The King is not his enemy, nor hers. It would be pointless to try to make him so. 

 

“I’d thought I’d been prepared,” she finally uttered, voice hoarse and haunted. “I thought I’d known the outcome . . . b-but now . . .”

 

Seeing her like this is affecting him, strangely, deeply.  She looks so fragile, so different from the pragmatic woman he’d met not so long ago, and all he can think is how he wants her suffering to stop, if only for a moment.  She looks like she’s about to fall over, or faint.  Placing his hands on her forearms, he braces her, and an even stranger thought crosses his mind. She lifts her head just a bit, enough to meet his eyes. There it is again. That trust, that hope. It makes him want to be better that what he is. 

 

She leans in, ever-so-slightly, probably unconsciously, and he thinks for a second, that maybe her fears could be lessened if he just . . .

 

No. Goodness, what has gotten into him. 

 

“Perhaps you’ll feel better after a moment’s rest,” he says, gently. She nods back, still shaken but faring better nonetheless. “Please, escort the Queen and Prince to their sleeping quarters.” 

 

Indeed, he has more important things to deal with than comforting Queens. 

 

He crosses the room to where he telephone hung, removed it from its socket and dialed a number. “Please connect me to -” 

 

What is that?

 

Energy. Nen. Dark, powerful Nen lingers not too far away from him. Who would be so careless as to let their Nen slip out like this? Or perhaps, it’s intentional? A power play? But no, this doesn’t feel like the Nen of a human. It’s unnatural. It’s . . . coming from Woble’s cradle?

 

He whirls around, eyes wide and alert, heart racing as he readied himself for whatever this mysterious energy might be. 

 

But there is nothing. The Queen gives him a worried look.

 

“Is there something wrong?” she asks. Even now, she worries about him? He isn’t sure what to make of that. 

 

“No,” he replies. “Just my imagination. Carry on.” 

 

_ But it isn’t.   _ Kurapika doesn’t imagine things. Something is in here, something powerful, something dangerous, and he’ll be damned if he let it go unchecked. He’ll have to remain alert from now on. The things attacking them aren’t limited to just humans anymore.

 

* * *

 

 

“Kurapika,” one of the guards says, just a few minutes after Queen Oito had been escorted out. “There’s something we think you should see.” 

 

Kurapika grants them a suspicious glare. What is so confusing and convoluted that they cannot reveal it now? That would require him seeing the object of their concern to understand? 

 

They lead him to the bathroom, and he couldn’t, for the life of him, understand what could’ve happened in there that would need his immediate attention. Surely, they hadn’t dragged him out to the washroom so he could fix a leaky faucet. Kurapika had never been particularly interested in indoor plumbing. He isn’t that sort of Hunter.

 

“It’s Woody.” 

 

Woody? The scraggly one? 

 

They lead him to an open bathroom stall where a shriveled body lays crumpled on the ground. Kurapika’s mind starts to race, not that it ever really slowed down. It looks as if all the man’s blood had just been drained. What could’ve caused this? Nen? What kind of person would have this sort of power? One of the bodyguards? The maids? Is it connected to what he’d felt before? 

 

Queen Oito. He’d left two others with her, but what if one of them are the assailants? 

 

“What do you think it is?” 

 

Kurapika clenches his jaw, trying hard to calm down. He’d have to confirm this before he leaps at the chance to accuse his allies. First, he’d confirm this was really Nen at work. 

 

He catches sight of a gaping hole in his neck. His eyes narrow as his brain comes to a conclusion.

 

“We’ll need to inspect the body,” he says. “I’m going to take off his clothes.” 

 

Holes. All over his body. Like the scene of one of those horror movies Leorio had forced him to watch back in his Hunter Exam days. There is hardly any doubt now, a nen user is attacking them. He doubts Woody had any violent enemies who would follow him onto the ship. They were most likely trying to cut down the Queen’s security. Now, it’s just a question of what sorts of conditions would need to be met to take her out. Do they need to be near her? Does she have to be alone? 

 

He turns back to the bodyguards.

 

The bodyguards’ ignorance of nen instantly make him regret bringing up the topic.  Uneducated idiots; the circumstances are worse than he thought.  He won’t be able to use his chains here.

 

Oito’s other bodyguards confront him on bringing up nen.  Kurapika explains how the gravitas of the situation surpasses the need for secrecy, and they act confused.  It is then that it dawns on him: they don’t know about the succession war.  Which means Oito must not have informed them--she must only have told Kurapika.  Kurapika’s eyes widen in realization.  This is a strange decision on her part, and he can’t help but wonder why he was the only one trusted with this knowledge.  

 

He asks the other bodyguards how they applied--apparently they were exempted from face-to-face interviews.  

 

“Even though it seems the Queen has taken a liking to you, that doesn’t mean you can go around saying whatever you want,” the one called Bill says.  Kurapika freezes and says nothing as the guards continue reprimanding him.  Despite Bill still being misinformed and trying to scold him, a small part of him is reeling over the fact that it wasn’t just his imagination--Oito does favor him.

**Author's Note:**

> We are collaborating on this fic, because two minds are better than one! It’s a lot of fun. Mostly, we’re hoping this fic can save us, or at least distract us from Kurapika’s potential demise from Emperor Time. Please let us know what you think in the comments! :)


End file.
